Tactile Display of Surface Texture by use of Amplitude Modulation of Ultrasonic Vibration

In the present study, tactile display of surface texture by use of amplitude modulation of ultrasonic vibration is developed. First, systems are constructed to display artificial tactile sensation using ultrasonic vibrator. Then, sensory evaluation experiments are conducted to confirm that output stimulations in response to hand velocity is effective to realize an artificial tactile sensation. Next, it is confirmed that the proposed method to display roughness of a real cloth was more effective than existing method. Then, we evaluated the tactile sensation of a real cloth and a tactile display quantitatively using SD (semantic differential) method. As a result, at the evaluation item on roughness, the correlation coefficients between a real cloth and an artificial tactile sensation using proposed method was quite high. In conclusion, it is confirmed that realistic surface texture can be displayed by use of amplitude modulation of ultrasonic vibration.